Hives less busy as honey prices rise

Jared Lynch Mark Hawthorne

Australia's biggest honey producers have halted overseas exports and failed to fill some of their supermarket orders as extreme weather wreaks havoc on bee numbers.

Drought and bushfire last summer wiped out an estimated 30 per cent of the nation's bees. Coupled with a severe decline in blossoms, it has almost halved production for some processors.

Capilano Honey managing director Ben McKee confirmed prices had risen as a result. ''Honey prices have increased but there is no great result [for the industry] … because honey is physically not being produced. It doesn't exist. You can't buy what doesn't exist,'' Dr McKee said.

Managing director Paul Thompson said the company had managed to secure hives this season, but paid more for them.

Bee broker Trevor Monson, of Monson's Honey and Pollination, Mildura, would not say exactly how much the price of hives had risen. He said beekeepers had to buy bees from Queensland to meet demand, but if conditions do not improve over winter the ''alarm bells would start ringing''.

The bee decline comes at the same time as a parliamentary inquiry into the future of beekeeping and pollination.